Never going to happen. Who are they going to blame when/if they actually have to assign blame for the coal jobs which Trump promised not materializing?
It will be, it will always be, yes, say it with me: Obama, not Trump. Maybe Hillary. (If we’re in an especially dark place, it will be “immigrants” or “The Jews.”) How could it possibly be Trump? Trump was working hard to get those jobs to them! He said so, so many times!
Or perhaps they were forced to use dangerous quack remedies like McIntyre Powder against black lung?
So, Coal = Freedom, as Secretary Perry said? Noted.
Sounds like a determinist worldview? Just curious.
In those days spirits were brave, the stakes were high, men were real men, women were real women and small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri were real small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri.
They’re the best, really the most luxurious suckers.
It’s a form of Stockholm Syndrome: in economic terms they’re now essentially captives of these one-industry company towns, and they’re willing to delude themselves because they don’t want to lose what little they have left. So they choose to believe the coal companies and vote for America’s foremost grifter who promises a return to a mythic past.
The ‘Great Horse Manure Crisis of 1894’
I’m more concerned about the ‘Great Horse Manure Crisis of 2017’. At this rate the White House and 10 Downing Street will be full of the stuff by 2020.
Fuck em. Who cares that a few hundred Cult45 members have decided to place their lives in the hands of a pathological liar? We are all free to make mistakes and we are just as free to suffer the consequences of our choices. Isn’t there some sort of personal responsibility angle the right’s been pushing lately?
I do have sympathy for them, especially if, as the article claims, their reluctance to enter retraining is because they believed Trump’s ludicrous claims. Its easy to say that you have to be incredibly ignorant to believe what Trump was saying, and there is some truth to that. But it wasn’t just him saying it. There were lots of so-called experts and educated people on TV repeating it and treating it like it was credible. I can easily see how someone desperate and hopeless would want to believe him, and that is a powerful motivator.
[quote]That coal will become less and less relevant. Even if they did open up new coal mines it’s still a doomed and declining industry
[/quote]
Even if the coal industry experience a dramatic resurgence, and became the dominant source of new energy, coal mining jobs would not come back. The issue isn’t that the industry is in decline (which it is), but that we don’t need people to mine coal any more. A coal resurgence would make mine owners rich, and would employ people to build power plants, but construction jobs in texas don’t employ coal miners in west virginia.
I am almost certain that this is the Trumpian fatigue talking, but I can’t muster a single iota of a shit to give about people this fucking stupid.
Funny thing; you can’t eat & live off of pride… or someone’s endless bullshit.
Yup, that’s what’s keeping me from going to the doctor for at least a check up.
It’s already knee deep? How full do you want it?
I agree with William Morris on the matter, but I understand other people want it cleared out.
We came presently into a large open space, sloping somewhat toward the south, the sunny site of which had been taken advantage of for planting an orchard, mainly, as I could see, of apricot trees, in the midst of which was a pretty gay little structure of wood, painted and gilded that looked like a refreshment-stall. From the southern side of the said orchard ran a long road chequered over with the shadow of tall old pear trees, at the end of which showed the high tower of the Parliament House, or Dung Market.
I can’t see William Morris approving of Trump though, no matter how much bull or horse shit he produces.
One thing I learned living in logging country is that the collapse of a small town’s sole industry, and the resentment that it breeds, eventually becomes a defining part of the town’s local culture. Meanwhile, the town will suffer a tremendous brain drain – every young person that graduates from the local high school but chooses to remain in town will be regarded as a tragic failure – even by the locals! Especially by the locals!
Picking up everything and moving to chase jobs is hard and it almost always ends in reduced living conditions. Perhaps that is the reality that these people can’t face.
Nope, not for these guys. They’re not even willing to help themselves.
I didn’t ask if you had any for them. Empathy is very pro-self.
Allow me to rephrase?
Where, but for the grace of God, go I?
Even the Bible says God helps those that help themselves. You know, this is coming from the party of self responsibility. Go fish somewhere else.
You’re right, of course, but what they need to learn in the High School History courses they slept through is that people have been moving to find better living conditions* for thousands of years. It’s not like they would be the first to do so.
And as I’ve said in the past, everybody in coal country with money, brains or initiative has already moved to California or Texas.
*I know you said “reduced living conditions”, but I have to believe the reduction would, in many cases, only be temporary.
Sarcasm? Because the Bible doesn’t say that. I do agree with the rest of your post.
Okay, so it wasn’t in the Bible, but Algernon Sydney in 1698 stated this in an article titled Discourses Concerning Government. Yes, I Googled this. It doesn’t matter, since Algernon Sydney was probably as wise as any character in the Bible. I also do not hold the Bible as my guide for living, but I do like to use it to refute willfully ignorant right wingers who believe the earth is 6,000 years old and that man lived with dinosaurs.
